UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON CURRICULUM (UCOC)
MINUTES
April 3, 2007
2:00-4:00
ACC 205
I.
MINUTES FROM MARCH UCOC MEETING
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II.
ADMINISTRATIVE ITEMS
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III.
APPROVED
APPROVED
INFORMATION ITEMS
A. Add “g” suffix to the following courses, which have been approved for General Education credit effective
Fall 2007:
Category II, Global Cultures and Traditions:
AHIS 127 Arts and Civilizations of Ancient Middle and South America (4)
AHIS 128 Arts of Latin America (4)
Category VI, Social Issues:
AMST 252 Black Social Movements in the United States (4)
B. Correction of January OSP minutes to include the revision of the Annenberg School for Communication’s
International Communication Studies International Summer Program. This ISP was reviewed and
renewed on the January OSP minutes, but the following slight revision was inadvertently left off the
minutes: “Courses taken include JOUR 499 Applied Journalism Studies in Global Media (2 units) or
COMM 499 Applied Communication Studies in Global Media (2 units) in place of JOUR 490X Directed
Research (2 units) or COMM 490x Directed Research (2 units).” The remaining course, JOUR 482,
remains unchanged.
IV.
DECEMBER PANEL AND SUBCOMMITTEE REPORTS
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
*F.
ARTS AND HUMANITIES - ACCEPTED
HEALTH PROFESSIONS . - ACCEPTED
OVERSEAS STUDIES. - ACCEPTED
SCIENCE, MATH AND ENGINEERING - ACCEPTED
SOCIAL SCIENCE - ACCEPTED
DIVERSITY REQUIREMENT COMMITTEE - ACCEPTED
* A question was raised about the appeal of the denial of the renewal of the diversity designation for COMM 324, which
was based on review of one acceptable and one unacceptable syllabus used by two different non-tenure track faculty. Tom
Hollihan expressed surprise that the designation wasn’t renewed based on the stronger syllabus with a statement that this
syllabus is the one that the committee expects the department to use. A second appeal stating just that would be appropriate,
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April 3, 2007
Page 2 of 4
and would probably be positively considered by the DRC, according to the committee’s representative.
V.
DISCUSSION ITEMS
A. DEFERRED DISCUSSION ITEMS
1.
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FROM THE 3/6/07 UCOC MINUTES: DEFERRED. Concern was expressed that departments sometimes
restrict students from other departments from taking courses that are electives for those programs without
curriculum review or approval. Research will be done in time for the April UCOC meeting concerning
Engineering proposing a new course in response to their students being prohibited from taking GSBA courses
that are on their lists of electives.
DISCUSSION: In the instance that prompted the discussion, a program was developed by one school that
used courses from another; the school offering the courses used by the program put different sections in the
schedule, one for a group of students in their own school and another for those for the program outside the
school. When the section for the students outside the school didn’t enroll the minimum required by the owning
school, the class was cancelled and an ‘online’ version was developed in its place. The program found the
online version less acceptable, so they proposed their own version of the course. UCOC encourages deans to
engage in dialogues concerning interdisciplinary programs that include potential pitfalls, such as the
inconsistent policies individual schools have concerning the minimum number of students required for a course
to ‘make.’ Although it might be convenient for students to be able to view online in advance a department’s
tentative schedule of classes, there is no guarantee that a planned class will actually “make” and be offered. It
may be necessary to consider offering courses that students need in order to graduate, even if fewer students
enroll than the usual minimum.
2.

Schools that stop offering courses previously approved as requirements for other department’s degrees.
Possible changes to program review guidelines for curriculum committee subcommittee chairs and
members.
FROM THE 3/6/07 UCOC MINUTES: DEFERRED. There was a flood of last-minute proposals and
pressure to review and approve programs in a very short time frame in order to include them on the reports for
this meeting, the last one at which courses and programs can be approved for inclusion into the 2007-08
catalogue.
Attachments: Three Excel tables showing the number of requests received for the 2006-07 academic year:
Courses, Programs, and Overseas Studies Programs.
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DISCUSSION: More pressure is on subcommittee chairs to make decisions in a short period of time on
courses, and coordinate review and decision on programs, in the few days prior to the UCOC meetings. Some
subcommittee chairs have found this year that asking two subcommittee members for responses has yielded no
differences of opinion so perhaps waiting for the second reviewer to respond has taken unnecessary time.
UCOC agreed that next year, the procedure should be that only one additional member besides the chair needs
to be asked to review a program (whether new or revised). If the two of them disagree, or want additional
input, a third person can be asked (and if need be, a subcommittee meeting could be held). Subcommittee cochairs need to coordinate between themselves so the burden of review is equally shared among all four of the
other subcommittee members.
The data provided indicated that SSS and AHP had received many more proposals than the other
subcommittees, and that considerably more proposals were received in February than earlier. However, the
distribution of work among subcommittees in 2006-7 may not be representative. Some schools that usually
provide many proposals produced few this year. The practice of sending proposals for an overworked
subcommittee to a different subcommittee should be continued.
Some chairs ask for greater level of support in the form of an electronic agenda (Excel spreadsheet would be
fine), and for subcommittee members who are asked to do the review to provide an acknowledgement email so
the chair knows if they are available. Once the online Curriculum Management System is in operation, it will
provide this tracking and record-keeping automatically. Increasing the size of the subcommittees would be
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April 3, 2007
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helpful and in order to do that Beth asks UCOC members to provide names of reliable faculty to participate.
Tom and Beth have agreed to meet with subcommittee chairs and all subcommittee members at the beginning
of next year to orient and support them.
Ken Servis supports the idea of the CCO meeting with department curriculum coordinators by the end of this
school year to get feedback from them on the process; Beth asks that UCOC members be invited to the
meeting. In addition, she suggests getting feedback from deans in January (via a questionnaire and/or
meeting) in order to improve the process.
Tom Cummings and Beth will prepare suggested changes in procedure for next year, for UCOC to vote on at
the May 1 meeting.
B. NEW DISCUSSION ITEMS
Course review: rationale for revising courses, and courses that cross disciplinary boundaries.

DISCUSSION: It seems that discussion and dialogue between deans and departments is missing from some
interdisciplinary proposals, such as a COLT course recently reviewed entitled ‘Soundtracks of our Lives.’ It
seemed that this course should have had some input from the deans of Music, Annenberg and the School of
Cinematic Arts. Such discussion can maximize the university’s strengths. Beth suggests that this subject be
raised at a meeting of the academic deans headed by Jean Morrison and Gene Bickers. Note: When the CCO
receives a request for a program including more than one department within a school, or a course that’s crosslisted by another department within that school, the request is processed whether or not there is an indication
that the chair of the affected department is aware of the request. The request is held up if the affected unit is
outside the proposing school. Giulio Ongaro also stated that he had received many proposals for new courses
for which the rationale was not informative, eg, “This is part of our curriculum change.” Most UCOC
members said that they found a rationale useful, and agreed that the CCO should send back proposals that lack
a substantive rationale, telling the department that their colleagues would find it useful to receive an
explanation for the proposal.
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April 3, 2007
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Members present
Members absent
Guests
Ron Alkana
Nelson Eugene Bickers (ex-officio)
Peter Beerel
Alice Gambrell (Writing Committee)
Hans Bozler
Judith Garner
Thomas Cummings (chair)
Michalle Mor-Barak
Frances M. Fitzgerald (support staff)
Hilary Schor (General Education)
Elizabeth Garrett (ex-officio)
Katherine Searing (graduate student)
Thomas Hollihan
Kenneth L. Servis (ex-officio)
Shirley Maxey
Jean Morrison (ex-officio)
Giulio Ongaro
Margaret Russett
Terry Seip
Edwenna Werner (ex-officio, for Kenneth Servis)
Jennifer Wolch (ex-officio)
_____________________________________________________ _____________________________
Thomas Cummings, Chair, University Committee on Curriculum
Date